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Shinto gave the samurai something to fight for and Confucianism established many of the rules in which they lived their lives, but it was Zen Buddhism that gave them their moral compass and truly made them spiritual warriors instead of blood thirsty marauders. Buddhism originated in India in the fifth century BC and then quickly spread throughout the Far East. During the eighth century AD, a form of Buddhism known as <i>Chan</i> made its way across the Sea of Japan and was embraced by the Japanese who called the sect <i>Zen</i>. <ref> Eisai. “Zen for National Defense.” In <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014044758X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=014044758X&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=2545b9667c42e731fc1c83e0fbd00c1b Buddhist Scriptures].</i> Edited by Donald S. Lopez Junior. (London: Penguin Books, 2004), p. 323</ref> Zen was different than many of the older Buddhist sects because it placed more emphasis on reaching enlightenment through meditation than on the study of the Buddha’s <i>sutras</i> or sayings, but it did not disregard the place of scholarship in the religion.

Foremost among Zen ideology were the Buddhist ideas of <i>samsara</i>, which is the idea of continual rebirths and <i>karma</i>. Karma is essentially a spiritual scorecard whereby an individual’s deeds, both good and bad, follow him or her from life to life and determine certain obstacles and rewards that one will face. In order to reduce one’s karma, the samurai were taught to follow the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, which teaches one to practice right actions, thoughts, etc. It was these ideas that gave the samurai their respect for life and was more than likely a big factor in the fact that the samurai initiated few atrocities against civilians during their long history. Although Zen helped spiritually ground the samurai, it did not make them weak and in many ways actually made them better warriors.